Embodiments described herein relate to devices that receive and transmit energy. Such devices are commonly known as “antennas” or “apertures”. Such apertures are commonly known to operate on various forms of energy, including Radio Frequency (RF) energy and acoustic energy, most commonly spanning radiated frequencies from 1011 Hz to 101 Hz. Embodiments described herein relate to apertures that are tuned to any of those forms of energy and frequencies. Aperture usage is commonly known on many entities, including air vehicles, maritime vehicles, ground vehicles, fixed ground structures, and fixed maritime structures. Embodiments described herein relate to apertures that are associated with any of those entities.
Apertures are commonly known to be used to receive and transmit energy for various purposes, including cooperative communications, uncooperative signal intercept, uncooperative signal interference, and positional sensing. Embodiments described herein relate to apertures that are used for any of those purposes. Most current apertures are dedicated to a single one of those purposes, while embodiments allow an aperture to be easily used for more than one purpose simultaneously.
Apertures are commonly known to encompass systems that consist of a single sensing or emission element and provide substantially omnidirectional performance. Apertures are also commonly known to encompass systems that consist of many elements and are collectively used to transmit or receive energy in a restricted direction, thereby increasing the quality of the reception or transmission. The techniques for restricting energy sensing or emission to a limited direction are commonly known as beamforming. Due to processing and data transfer speed limitations such directional apertures have in the past been limited to lower frequency signals, nominally 103 Hz, such as those used for acoustic energy processing.
Most commonly-used apertures consist of a single antenna that receives and transmits signals omnidirectionally. Each such aperture is dedicated to a single, unalterable purpose, is connected to a specific electronic system, and is sensitive to a limited range of signal characteristics. As a result of these “stovepipes”, many entities are burdened with an excess number of apertures. The excess number of apertures, and the corresponding stovepiped telemetry, has a negative effect on the platform's structure, aerodynamics, and radar observability. In addition, the omnidirectional aperture reception characteristics limit received signal quality, while the omnidirectional transmission characteristics may provide an opportunity for interception by an adversary.